Next time: game on.
Stay safe, everyone...
Sunday, May 31, 2020
Comic 768 -- A Fast One
Who's on the team? Who's on the bench? Who, in fact, is on first?
Next time: game on.
Stay safe, everyone...
Next time: game on.
Stay safe, everyone...
Friday, May 1, 2020
Comic 767 -- Rules of the Game
If you wanna play the game, you gotta learn the rules...
It was an interesting exercise to come up with rules for a game that is a) partially described in historical records, and b) useful for the story.
Hopefully, this game would actually work as described. If not... well, let me know, and I'll look up whatever coping mechanism J.K. Rowling uses when somebody reminds her that Quidditch isn't really playable.
It was an interesting exercise to come up with rules for a game that is a) partially described in historical records, and b) useful for the story.
Hopefully, this game would actually work as described. If not... well, let me know, and I'll look up whatever coping mechanism J.K. Rowling uses when somebody reminds her that Quidditch isn't really playable.
Saturday, April 4, 2020
Tuesday, March 31, 2020
In Progress...
Hi everyone,
The next strip is in progress, but I'm going to be a few days late. It's been... well, you know.
I have no brilliant insights to offer or anything. I think we're all doing the best we can right now.
Hang in there, everyone, and stay safe...
Grayson
The next strip is in progress, but I'm going to be a few days late. It's been... well, you know.
I have no brilliant insights to offer or anything. I think we're all doing the best we can right now.
Hang in there, everyone, and stay safe...
Grayson
Sunday, March 1, 2020
Comic 765 -- From the World of Time
The Princess of Aptos meets the King of the Underworld...
Here we have a bit of lore about Thunderstruck that has been a long time coming. We'll go into some more detail next strip, but an explanation of the "World of Time" aspect of the story is something I've been looking forward to for a while.
I've also been looking forward to drawing these gods.
Here we have a bit of lore about Thunderstruck that has been a long time coming. We'll go into some more detail next strip, but an explanation of the "World of Time" aspect of the story is something I've been looking forward to for a while.
I've also been looking forward to drawing these gods.
Friday, January 31, 2020
Comic 764 -- The Place of Fear
Sharon's off to another mythical landscape...
Just be glad we still haven't developed a way to send smells over the internet. Yuck.
Some of you guessed where this was going when Bella mentioned the ball game in the last strip. Personally, I remember learning about the whole idea of the sacred ball game years ago, and being fascinated by the concept.
Like many elements of myth, the sacred ball game has many different variations in different cultures and time periods... the tradition may be more than 3000 years old, so that's a lot of time for people to come up with their own versions. As usual, the Thunderstruck version of the game, the city, the gods, etc. isn't meant to be definitive in any way, but rather is inspired by a mythological idea.
But I didn't make up the river of pus. I swear.
Just be glad we still haven't developed a way to send smells over the internet. Yuck.
Some of you guessed where this was going when Bella mentioned the ball game in the last strip. Personally, I remember learning about the whole idea of the sacred ball game years ago, and being fascinated by the concept.
Like many elements of myth, the sacred ball game has many different variations in different cultures and time periods... the tradition may be more than 3000 years old, so that's a lot of time for people to come up with their own versions. As usual, the Thunderstruck version of the game, the city, the gods, etc. isn't meant to be definitive in any way, but rather is inspired by a mythological idea.
But I didn't make up the river of pus. I swear.
Wednesday, January 1, 2020
Comic 763 -- The Pilkvist Twins
Next step of the quest...
Hi everyone! It's 2020! Can't say I was a super fan of 2019, but maybe better luck this turn around the ol' sun, yes? We can all hope.
Hi everyone! It's 2020! Can't say I was a super fan of 2019, but maybe better luck this turn around the ol' sun, yes? We can all hope.
Sunday, December 1, 2019
Comic 762 -- Cards on the Table
Even though she's just a head in a box...
... Bella can still play a hell of a game of cards.
Okay. This may not be too wise, but I'm going to share a little behind-the-scenes.
Every writer has a different theory of outlines. Some don't even bother with them (these are known as "Pantsers," i.e., writing by the seat of the pants). Some adhere to them like dogma.
Me? I'm somewhere in the middle. I like a good outline, and indeed there comes a point in writing any long piece where I need one in order to make any progress. I'm not a pantser, in general.
But just as Prussian Field Marshall Helmuth von Moltke observed that no battle plan survives contact with the enemy, so too have I discovered that no outline I've ever made survives contact with my characters.
(To give you an idea of how this works, in the very first outline of Thunderstruck, Gail was a side character, and Stella exited the story by Chapter 4. That plan dropped over the far horizon a long time ago.)
As a consequence of this phenomenon, my outlines tend to be on the loose side. My latest outline for Thunderstruck, generated back before my hiatus, is a sketchy number that has nevertheless served as my compass for better than a decade.
Only now I'm not so sure it's the right way to go.
This time, it's not pushy characters insisting they aren't ready to be written out yet. My sense of the old outline's inadequacy is more a matter of how I've changed as a writer since I came up with it.
I can't really go deeper into details without laying out plot elements and potential spoilers I don't want to reveal. In a nutshell, though, I'm going to have to sit down with that outline and do some serious thinking. Fortunately, the holidays are coming up, and that's often a good time to reflect.
What does this mean to you as readers? Hopefully, nothing. With any luck, I will be able to pivot to whatever new outline I devise with such balletic grace that nobody would ever think I had ever planned anything else. It's possible. Although Thunderstruck does have a rather large Jenga tower of continuity to manage, and a few blocks may go by the wayside in the process.
Hopefully just a few.
However, I can declare my commitment not to take another extended hiatus. One is more than enough.
Anyway, that's the state of affairs right now, at least as much as I can reveal. Hope you are all having a good holiday season, and thank you for sticking with me as I try to find my way to a satisfying end to this tangled story.
... Bella can still play a hell of a game of cards.
Okay. This may not be too wise, but I'm going to share a little behind-the-scenes.
Every writer has a different theory of outlines. Some don't even bother with them (these are known as "Pantsers," i.e., writing by the seat of the pants). Some adhere to them like dogma.
Me? I'm somewhere in the middle. I like a good outline, and indeed there comes a point in writing any long piece where I need one in order to make any progress. I'm not a pantser, in general.
But just as Prussian Field Marshall Helmuth von Moltke observed that no battle plan survives contact with the enemy, so too have I discovered that no outline I've ever made survives contact with my characters.
(To give you an idea of how this works, in the very first outline of Thunderstruck, Gail was a side character, and Stella exited the story by Chapter 4. That plan dropped over the far horizon a long time ago.)
As a consequence of this phenomenon, my outlines tend to be on the loose side. My latest outline for Thunderstruck, generated back before my hiatus, is a sketchy number that has nevertheless served as my compass for better than a decade.
Only now I'm not so sure it's the right way to go.
This time, it's not pushy characters insisting they aren't ready to be written out yet. My sense of the old outline's inadequacy is more a matter of how I've changed as a writer since I came up with it.
I can't really go deeper into details without laying out plot elements and potential spoilers I don't want to reveal. In a nutshell, though, I'm going to have to sit down with that outline and do some serious thinking. Fortunately, the holidays are coming up, and that's often a good time to reflect.
What does this mean to you as readers? Hopefully, nothing. With any luck, I will be able to pivot to whatever new outline I devise with such balletic grace that nobody would ever think I had ever planned anything else. It's possible. Although Thunderstruck does have a rather large Jenga tower of continuity to manage, and a few blocks may go by the wayside in the process.
Hopefully just a few.
However, I can declare my commitment not to take another extended hiatus. One is more than enough.
Anyway, that's the state of affairs right now, at least as much as I can reveal. Hope you are all having a good holiday season, and thank you for sticking with me as I try to find my way to a satisfying end to this tangled story.
Friday, November 1, 2019
Comic 761 -- Where We Stand
Let's get our bearings here...
This really should have been the start of another chapter, but I kind of spaced that part. I'll fix it in the next update.
I don't know about you guys, but I have enough difficulty keeping track of the threads (or strings) of my own story that I felt it was a good time to pause and take stock. Someday I'll write a simple story that follows a straight path. Something sweet and lovable. A child and his dog, maybe. They're looking for their mother's missing hairbrush in the yard. Only the dog starts digging, and the ground gives way, and suddenly they find a tunnel system that leads them into the globe-spanning labyrinth of an immortal and tormented Daedalus who has been digging for centuries in order to find the last line of the final song of Orpheus that will let him undo the fate of his beloved son Icarus, yet in his digging he has awakened an ancient colony of sleeping insectoid beings that have an inscrutable agenda of their own to... goddamn it! You see what happens?
My wife writes haiku. A handful of evocative words, that's it. Blows my mind.
This really should have been the start of another chapter, but I kind of spaced that part. I'll fix it in the next update.
I don't know about you guys, but I have enough difficulty keeping track of the threads (or strings) of my own story that I felt it was a good time to pause and take stock. Someday I'll write a simple story that follows a straight path. Something sweet and lovable. A child and his dog, maybe. They're looking for their mother's missing hairbrush in the yard. Only the dog starts digging, and the ground gives way, and suddenly they find a tunnel system that leads them into the globe-spanning labyrinth of an immortal and tormented Daedalus who has been digging for centuries in order to find the last line of the final song of Orpheus that will let him undo the fate of his beloved son Icarus, yet in his digging he has awakened an ancient colony of sleeping insectoid beings that have an inscrutable agenda of their own to... goddamn it! You see what happens?
My wife writes haiku. A handful of evocative words, that's it. Blows my mind.
Tuesday, October 1, 2019
Comic -- Fillin 'Cuz I'm Illin'
Sorry about this.
If you're curious about what kind if illness, the answer is shingles.
This crap has had me on my back for the majority of the month. Good news is that it's getting better. Bad news is that shingles really lives up to the hype as an excruciating experience.
If you're 50 or more, get the vaccine. Really.
So, today we're getting some selections from my sketchbook. Thanks for hanging in there with me, everyone.
If you're curious about what kind if illness, the answer is shingles.
This crap has had me on my back for the majority of the month. Good news is that it's getting better. Bad news is that shingles really lives up to the hype as an excruciating experience.
If you're 50 or more, get the vaccine. Really.
So, today we're getting some selections from my sketchbook. Thanks for hanging in there with me, everyone.
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